"The new birth centre is great, a real difference from the old one"

I had both my babies at the LRI. My first was an emergency forceps delivery, I had to be transferred from birth centre to a delivery room. The experience wasn't a great one because of the changes of staff, & difficulty in labouring when I was transferred, because I had to lie flat on my back otherwise the monitor kept falling off. I felt some midwives were a bit peremptory and could have explained what was happening a bit better, it was a shock when suddenly I had to be transferred as I hadn't progressed as much as I should have done in the time, and then rushed to theatre. I also thought they were impatient with my need to labour actively and wanted me to lie still. However, I can't complain because I was so delighted that they did manage to deliver via forceps and avoid a C-section. The birth centre was being renovated at the time and there wasn't a pool to use, and the whole environment wasn't great.

Second labour was a very different experience, baby came a lot faster, I was able to go straight into the new birth centre (although I got a bit told off for not ringing up first - simply hadn't been able to because it had all happened so fast and I wasn't able to speak on the phone). Lovely spacious room with pool, very quiet and soothing. The midwife was very experienced, calm, absolutely lovely, ran the pool for me, and almost as soon as I got in baby arrived in a few pushes. The new birth centre is great, a real difference from the old one. They let me recover in the room for ages, I had my stitches in there and they let me bond with the baby skin to skin, then transferred to the ward overnight.

I would recommend the new birth centre, and there are some amazing midwives. It makes all the difference if you can just have contact with one person throughout.